


As Summer Turns to Fall

by Tamoline



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-08-07
Packaged: 2018-02-12 06:22:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2098845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tamoline/pseuds/Tamoline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As summer turns to fall, Sam slowly stops smiling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Summer Turns to Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Although I am reusing a character from 'Until the Next Time', this fic isn't in continuity with that story, or 'Flowerpots and Trellises' for that matter.

As summer turns to fall, Sam slowly stops smiling.

Not that she ever smiled that much, but Imelda considers herself to be an excellent reader of people, and Sam, for all that a casual acquaintance might think she has but one facial expression, adds a *texture* to it that can communicate her feelings perfectly adequately to those who know her well, or, in Imelda’s case, well *enough*.

And, as summer turns to fall, the animation slowly starts to fade from Sam’s face.

It doesn’t affect her work - she does it with as much precision as ever, and Imelda already tries to guide any customer whose experience she judges will be adversely affected by Sam’s demeanour over to another one of her girls - but she likes to think that she looks after her staff, and she’s undoubtedly the closest thing to a friend Sam has here, so she can’t help but be a little… worried.

“Are you alright?” she asks as Sam is packing up one day.

Sam looks at her expressionlessly.

“You’ve just been seeming…” she shrugs, “A little down recently.”

Sam’s expression doesn’t change. “I’m fine.”

Imelda is somewhat than convinced, but just asking bluntly doesn’t seem to be getting her anywhere. “I haven’t seen that customer of yours around recently. I forget the name,” she says, waving a hand around vaguely. “You know the one.” Sam hadn’t exactly smiled around her - more irritated if anything - but she’d seemed more *alive* after one of her visits.

And, as summer had turned to fall, they’d just… stopped.

And *this* gets a reaction from Sam, however minute. Her gaze flinches away, looks past Imelda into the middle distance. After a moment, she says, “She must have found another beautician,” she says, and there’s something in the tone of her voice that makes Imelda think of stumbling across a yawning chasm.

She tries a smile on for size. “Well, okay. Just remember if you ever need to talk…”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Sam says, then grabs her coat and leaves the store.

It’s a few weeks after that, as the leaves on the trees turn yellow and gold, that Imelda starts noticing a man calling around for Sam near the end of her shift. His name is Gavin and every time he swaggers in like he owns the place and drapes himself over Sam. Imelda doesn’t like him, both on gut instinct and the way that he doesn’t bring any *life* to Sam - she seems to suffer his presence more than anything else.

Talking to Sam about, well, anything hasn’t gotten any easier in the interim, of course.

“Are you seeing Gavin tonight?” she tries.

“Hot date,” Shaw says, and there it is, that spark that Imelda’s been missing so far from their relationship.

Imelda relaxes. Maybe she’s been wrong about Sam and Gavin. Maybe he is good for her. “Oh, yes? Anywhere nice?”

An amused glint enters Sam’s eyes. “The shooting range. He’s teaching me how to use a gun,” she says, and there’s a wry note in her voice that Imelda doesn’t quite know how to explain.

“Oh,” Imelda says, not quite sure what to say. It’s not a traditional date, but then she guesses Sam has never exactly quite managed to find the traditional mood, not matter ho much she tries. “Have fun.”

“I’ll try,” Sam says, and that’s the end of the conversation.

The leaves are falling from the trees when Imelda notices Sam moving stiffly at work, an inflexibility when she bends over like she’s bruised. She adds injury and Gavin and comes up with a sum she doesn’t much like.

“Are you alright?” she asks. “It’s just I noticed that you seem to be a little… sore.”

Sam glowers at her, but any venom seems more self-directed. “Stupid mistake. I’ll be fine.”

“Is everything alright with Gavin?” she asks delicately.

Sam looks her blankly for a moment, then huffs. “We’re over. Mutual incompatibilities.”

Gavin hadn’t been in for a week or two, but Imelda’d put it down to the fading of the first bloom of a relationship.

“Oh,” she says. “I’m sorry to hear that.” It’s a reflex. She isn’t sorry at all really. Even if he had been good for Sam, she still hadn’t like him.

Sam shrugs and busies herself. It’s only when she’s walking away that she realises that Sam has seemed more alive today than she has for weeks.

Maybe it’s a change for the better, she thinks. Maybe Sam’s getting over whatever malaise she had been suffering.

It doesn’t last. As the last of the leaves disappear from the trees, as the first chill winds really starts to blow, as fall turns inexorably into winter, the more an air of compressed tension seems to surface within Sam, as though she’s a bomb that ever so slowly arming itself.

Imelda worries, but she doesn’t know how to broach the subject without risking setting her off.

Finally, it’s Sam who approaches Imelda.

“What are you doing tonight?” she asks.

Imelda blinks, not quite certain how to answer.

“You’re coming drinking with me,” Sam informs her bluntly, but there’s something akin to need in her eyes.

And, really, what can Imelda say to that?

When they get to the bar, Sam orders hard liquor and very determinedly goes about getting herself drunk. Finally, after Sam’s spine has unbent enough, she starts to speak in halting sentences.

“I used to have a job that matters,” she says, then barks out a laugh. “I’ve had several jobs that matter. Had to leave every one. Always found another one. Another way to make a difference. Now I’m here. Applying makeup. Painting nails.”

Imelda can’t help feeling a little insulted. “I know it isn’t the most glamorous of work, Sam, but…”

“It’s not me. Whatever this job is, it’s not me.” Another laugh. “I guess that’s the point. And there’s this…” she makes a frustrated gesture. “Building up inside of me and I don’t know what it is. But do you know what the worst thing is?”

Imelda shakes her head.

“I don’t form attachments to people. I don’t care about people. I don’t miss people. It’s just not in me,” she says, and as she turns to look at Imelda, there are tears running down her face that she seems completely oblivious to. “So why can’t I stop thinking about *her*?”

“Her?”

For a moment, it looks like Sam’s going to actually answer, but instead she shakes her head, and lets out a awful, half choked laugh. “It doesn’t matter. She’s gone quiet and everyone else is laying low. She hasn’t been around for months, and the only reason she’d leave me alone this long is…” She shrugs. “It doesn’t matter.” She drains her current glass, and orders another drink. “Why can’t I get her out of my head” she whispers.

Imelda reaches over gingerly, and touches Sam on the arm, to try and give her some level of comfort. Sam doesn’t acknowledge it, but doesn’t flinch away either. Instead, she just stares into her glass. “I’ve decided: fuck them. Fuck them all. I’m going to go do something important again, even if it kills me.” She drains her drink, stands up and gives Imelda something that almost approximates a smile. “Have a good evening.”

When Sam doesn’t come in the next morning, as the first snow begins to fall, Imelda can’t say that she’s surprised. And when she reads in the paper of a terrorist attack on Decima Technologies, an attack the terrorist failed to survive, something somehow clicks into place, as much as she denies it to herself.

Instead, as midwinter approaches, as the snow begins to fall in earnest, she tells herself that Sam is out there somewhere, making a difference, after having found the mysterious ‘her’.

It’s a nice story, a nice end to Sam’s tale. Even if it’s all a lie.

**Author's Note:**

> This has probably got the urge to write angsty fic out of my system for now. I swear that it doesn't happen that often.


End file.
